


Rebirth

by kurohswife



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Gen, Minor Canonical Character(s), NOT REALLY BT IDK WHAT TO LABEL THIS IM SOZ Im a sham, Vignette, What Happens After, look this wasn't as well written as id have liked it to be so lower your expectations fam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 02:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8648773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurohswife/pseuds/kurohswife
Summary: Pick up the pieces of your shattered life and forge one anew from the fire within.
[What happens to Jokaste: a series of vignettes]





	

**Author's Note:**

> ((This has been a long time coming but whatever lol IM SORRY))
> 
> I’ve been thinking about this ever since Jokaste’s note. I also saw Jokaste hate on the tumblr tag and I’m salty af, so here you go. Please, love her. 
> 
> [This is unbeta’d because I live life on the edge, also, I hate myself. Might come back to this someday and edit but for now, take it, it's been six months since I started it...]
> 
> Songs I listened to while writing this: the entire discography of Daughter. On repeat. Shoutout in particular to “To Belong,” “Home” and “Mothers”.

Her name was Casta and she came to the village in spring. 

 

She spoke the local dialect with a foreign accent, and her long lustrous blonde hair set off whispered discussions about her origin. Her graceful stature was befitting of a noblewoman, but what could a noblewoman be doing here, in a small country village? Had she perhaps, some women whispered conspiratorially, been disgraced?

 

When she went around asking for employment, baby tucked into the crook of her arm, the women tittered and some men spat on the floor. One pointedly suggested that if she was looking for work, she should, perhaps, try “the world’s oldest profession.” Really, did this outsider think she could just waltz in and live here like she owned the place, with her quietly arrogant airs and lack of respect? Work at the bottom humbly _or go back to where you came from_.

 

Despite all the conspiratorial mutterings surrounding Casta, one elderly lady took pity on the elegant woman and offered her light work and lodgings. Gratefully, Casta accepted and in return, looked after the lady, cooking meals and cleaning.

 

She settled in somewhat better with the patronage of the elderly lady, but the villagers still distrusted Casta. Outsiders rarely came to this small corner of the country, and certainly not this village. If they were, they were treated gruffly at best if guests, but any longer, and they were looked at suspiciously.

 

That is, all the villagers, bar a gentle one named Ilaria. Ilaria did not approach Casta at first, not properly, instead giving her housemate a jar of pickles and a note, with a messy scrawl that hoped “the guest” would enjoy the gift too. 

 

“She was always a timid one, that Ilaria,” said the lady with a knowing smile. “Kind, but isolated. If you’ll forgive my comparison, you could say that the two of you are in somewhat similar situations.” 

 

The lady invited Ilaria over for dinner as token of gratitude, the young woman fidgeting throughout the meal with a child clutched in her arms. At first Ilaria did not speak much beyond mumbled monosyllabic words, cheeks a light pink, eyes refusing to meet Casta’s. 

 

Casta thanked Ilaria for the gift then asked her about her child. 

 

“Her name is Psyche,” said Ilaria quietly. 

 

Casta smiled, nodding as she held her own child in her arms. “This is my son, Leander. I would love if the two of them could grow up as friends.” 

 

Ilaria nodded hesitantly, but was willing to talk a little more after that.

 

When she had left, the lady turned to Casta. “I’m glad the two of you are getting along. Ilaria too was isolated when her husband died in the war. He had been her only connection to the village, really, and she is a kind soul. But the villagers were never as friendly to her as they were to him.”

 

“I see,” was all Casta said. 

 

“If you don’t mind me asking, why did you choose this village?” The unspoken question of why Casta would try to fit in a place that was so unfriendly to outsiders hung suspended in the cool night’s air.

 

“A new start,” was all she said. 

 

The lady smiled and nodded. “I shall retire for the night. Remember to close the windows. Good night.” 

 

Palm cupping her chin, Casta looked out onto the village, the tops of the roofs just below her line of sight and partly obscuring the view of the horizon. Months ago, this village was but several terracotta-coloured specks in the distance from her room in the palace. 

 

Casta lay in bed, Leander in a makeshift cot a few metres away. She was becoming used to the stiffness of the narrow straw-stuffed mattress, and so she slept.

 

* * *

Lonely souls gravitate towards each other. In Akielos, Casta would have viewed the awkward Illaria with mild disdain. Without the political turmoil, Casta could consider her at least a friend. 

 

Against the backdrop of folding clothes and hanging them, feeding the chickens and collecting their eggs, cooking and cleaning, Casta found solace in the little bright details.

 

Illaria stuttered and stumbled over words when she was excited. She wrung her hands when she was nervous. She refused to meet Casta’s eyes when Casta looked, quote, “particularly beautiful that day.”

 

When Leander and Psyche were brought together, their tiny fists reached for each other before they’d sleep happily, holding each other’s hand. 

 

When the lady was absorbed in knitting, she would rock back and forth, humming a familiar ditty.

 

But Casta would also ache for what could have been.

 

Casta’s heart ached when Leander’s hand enclosed around her finger, and he would coo back at her. She would ache for the world that could have been, the future her son could have had. 

 

This world was really more than she deserved, but time and complacency makes us nostalgic.

 

* * *

 

Casta was hanging laundry when the villager approached her.

 

“Why are you here? Can’t you see you are unwelcome?” the woman’s voice was cold. “You and your child should leave before you spread your outside nonsense.”

 

In a measured tone, Casta disagreed, “I am living here for a new beginning with no intention harm to others, which I am free to do so. Please, leave us alone.”

 

“No harm? Leave you alone?” the woman started laughing incredulously. “You lot should have left me and my family alone! Get back, you whore!” 

 

She lunged at Casta, who stepped aside. The woman stumbled and braced herself against the wall. “How dare you!” 

 

“For what? Not letting myself be grabbed at pathetically by you?”

 

A small crowd was forming. 

 

“You bitch! No wonder you have no man,” she snarled. “No one could love a selfish woman like you!” 

 

Casta stilled imperceptibly. 

 

“What is happening here?” asked a grave voice.

 

“This outsider you’re housing is picking a fight with me!” fumed the woman.

 

The crowd tittered disdainfully. There was no way any of these people were open for a discussion. They wanted a scapegoat. 

 

“As long as she lives in my house, she is a guest and must be treated as such. Do you understand?” asked Casta’s benefactor. 

 

The villagers were quiet but nodded disdainfully. 

 

“Good.”

 

They scattered from the scene.

 

“I apologise on their behalf. The village is tense because the last time outsiders were welcomed, they spread stories about the glory of being drafted for war, and with promises of prosperity, many left and never came back. In this tightly knit community, it was disastrous. But it doesn’t excuse their treatment of you or your son. Now, they just hear what they want to hear.” The elderly lady sighed. “Times must change, or this village will be stuck in the past forever, vulnerable to future threats.” 

 

* * *

 

A young woman bowed her head before Casta, who was surprised by the action.

 

“I am very sorry for my mother,” she said. “My elder brother was drafted into the war. He was the centre of our family’s world. But it was spiteful of her to take it out on you.” 

 

Men who acted upon their beliefs were leaders, deserving their place on pedestals, but a woman who did that could only ever be a whore queen.

 

“I forgive your mother,” said Casta. “Please, stand up.” 

 

“Your son, and Illaria’s daughter, are welcome in my house. Please, if you need anything, do not be afraid to ask.”

 

Casta thanked the young woman profusely. 

 

* * *

 

One night when the moon was particularly bright from their humble abode’s window and Casta’s son had been put to bed, gurgling in his sleep a little happily, the elderly lady told Casta that she had lost her only son in war.

 

“He was hotheaded and straightforward,” she said, tone tinged with melancholy and love, “but with a strong sense of what was right and wrong, and he was so very caring. I was against him leaving the village… but he was adamant.”

 

Casta’s thoughts dwelled on Damen. “I once knew a man who was like that,” she said.

 

The lady smiled kindly and patiently, not pressing Casta for any details.

 

“I…” Casta hesitated, before she closed her eyes. “I betrayed him.”

 

“We all make mistakes,” said the lady gently.

 

Casta paused.

 

“Sometimes I wish it could have been different,” she said quietly. “Sometimes I wonder if I really did the right thing. I was scared, for both of us, and for our unborn child. I had to act… yet no matter what I could do, I would lose out.”

 

The lady nodded knowingly. “In some situations, the best decision, no matter how undesirable, is all you can do. What matters is that you acted, and bore the consequences. Now all you can do is make the most of it.”

 

It was the first time Casta had spoken of her past in that quaint little village.

 

Seasons came and seasons went. The flowers bloomed fleetingly in technicolour and faded just as quickly, wilting progression marked by increasingly chilly weather. 

 

Casta watched her son grow up. She heard him gurgle his first words and saw him take his first steps. His bedtime stories were the epics of Akielos and sometimes snippets of her youth.

 

She ushered him to the little village school where his only friend was Psyche. The others were warned not to mingle closely with “those outsiders” (though some still did). Leander and Psyche did not seem to particularly mind, and were inseparable.

 

Casta and Illaria would keep each other company as their children had playdates. Sometimes they would reminisce about their ex-lovers. Sometimes they would contemplate their children and their future. And sometimes, they would say nothing, holding hands in comfortable silence.

 

* * *

 

As surely as flowers bloom in spring, leaves fall in autumn, and everything that starts must have an end.

 

The elderly lady fell ill when the leaves drifted to the ground, blanketing soil and rock in a shroud of burnt sienna. Bedridden, she lay, waiting.

 

Casta held her wizened hand.

 

“Thank you for taking care of me,” she said. 

 

Casta shook her head urgently. “I think it was you who was taking care of me.” 

 

A soft laugh sounded, the lady’s body shuddering with the effort.

 

“…I was called Jokaste, once,” Casta blurted out to her, whose eyes widened just a little.

 

“I knew,” she said gently. “Ah, what a beautiful name.” 

 

Casta wanted to ask her why she would offer redemption to the whore queen who effectively assisted in the near downfall of Akielos. But before Casta could, the lady smiled one last time, and slept.

 

* * *

 

In the years that followed, Casta sought to build upon the relationships with the other villagers. Most were not receptive, but even permafrost thaws a little in the spring, and some were more open than others. For Casta, it was enough. She just wanted her son to have a support network beyond his immediate family.

 

Through the years she heard, from Illaria, who heard from the few passers-by, of the stories of the Kings of Akielos and Vere, their alliance bringing widespread peace.

 

She heard of the prosperity, the happiness, the courtly antics. The world she used to be part of, a garden that had been rotting with decay, now thriving without political corruption. 

 

Out with the old and in with the new… the court of the Akielos-Vere alliance was something she could never have achieved. She no longer felt the old bitterness.

 

None of that mattered now, because she was content with her new family, with Illaria, Leander and Psyche. 

 

* * *

 

Years peeled away like the wilting of rosebuds, revealing to her the journey's end. Her last days were in her bed, with her son and daughter-in-law holding her hands, now wrinkled and sun-spotted. Her grandchildren too surrounded her bed, even if to their young minds this first encounter of death was alien.

 

She thought of her childhood, of a naive girl's mind cultivated into slyness by ambitious parents, of lessons in etiquette and politics and seduction, of her seeing Prince Damianos for the first time and having her heart beat a little faster, a little harder.

 

She thought of what could have been, with her by Damianos' side on the throne of Akielos, her bearing his son and many more children, of all the feasts in celebration of coronations and birthdays and anniversaries. Visions filled her mind, of long nights where she would lay sated in the afterglow of her lovemaking with Damianos and he would rub her lower back in soothing circles, hair mussed and dark eyes tender as he murmurs promises and confessions till they fell asleep embracing each other under silken sheets.

 

She thought of the man (who was brave and kind and caring) she once loved and wanted to protect while they were caught in the tide of a dangerous game, of the lonely bitter nights where she had lain in the richest silks with her back turned away from the false king she courted, of the prince whose shrewd blue eyes mirrored the determination and iron will she carried, of political plots and betrayal and the cold sting of regret beneath a carefully constructed façade.

 

She thought of the elderly woman who kindly listened to her troubles, of timid Ilaria who had approached and befriended and loved her and who she would see again someday, of her son Leander and his wife Psyche and how they pressed their foreheads together in loving contemplation of each other. She thought of the long decades of peace due to Akielos and Vere's unification, and how her children and grandchildren could live without political games and pointless wars.

 

She thought of how despite everything, she had somehow carved out a world for her and her son to live peacefully in, the proof of it in the family who surrounded her bed.

 

Jokaste smiled. Her eyes shut, and she slept.


End file.
